Starving for Perfection
by shuisfull
Summary: Not my characters! Tracy tries to be perfect for Link, but at what cost?
1. Chapter 1

SEPTEMBER

As Tracy looked in her mirror, she knew that she wasn't ever going to be tall and willowy like Penny or thin but curvy like Amber. She was always going to be short and always overweight. It didn't matter to her what her parents told her or what Penny said. She knew what she was and that Link wasn't going to stick around forever if she didn't make some changes. As she dressed for school, the first day of her junior year, she decided that she was no longer going to be the fat girl. She was going to get down to a size eight by Christmas and give up all sweets and fried foods and dance for two hours everyday after the show was over. And, she would actually participate in gym class.

Tracy heard Link beep his horn outside and grabbed her things and went out to meet him.

They had had a fantastic summer together. They spent everyday together, dancing, going to amusement parks and movies, hanging out at Maybelle's with Seaweed and Penny and Lil' Inez. Link took every opportunity he had to kiss her and each time was as wonderful as the first. But they never went any farther than kissing. She tried to urge him on, placing his hands where she wanted them but he always moved them back to where they had been, on her arms or neck. She realized that as intrigued as he was by her mouth, he was disgusted by her body.

She jumped in the car, not even noticing that she hadn't eaten breakfast. "Hey, Link!" she greeted him, shutting the door behind her.

"Hey, Darlin'," he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek.

'Yup,' Tracy thought, 'something's got to be done about this.'


	2. Chapter 2

OCTOBER

In only a month, Tracy had gone from a size eighteen to a fourteen! She kept rigorous journals of what she ate, how much she danced. She had even gone to her gym teacher for advice and began running everyday during her study hall. Tracy couldn't remember feeling so good about her self. She had saved up her allowance and bought a couple of new skirts from a store in the nice part of town to celebrate.

One day at the station, as she and Link were leaving together, he stopped dead in his tracks. "Trace, are you feeling all right?" he carefully asked, watching her wearily.

"Never been better, why?" she said with a smile. In truth, she had been a little tired but she figured it was just from the running and dancing.

Link took her hand and led the way to his car. "I don't know, you haven't looked very good lately." He unlocked the passenger side door and held it for Tracy to get it. She climbed in and sat in silence the entire ride home.

'It isn't working. I'm just as fat to him as I was before. And now he thinks I'm ugly. I'm just going to have to work harder.'

Tracy began not only running during her study hall, but during lunch as well. She cut her already skimpy meals in half. She stopped letting her self feel hunger pangs.


	3. Chapter 3

NOVEMBER

In only two months Tracy was only one size away from her goal of being a size eight! All her clothes had to be taken in because they now fell off her hips when they once squeezed at her waist. But every time she looked in the mirror, she still saw a fat girl staring back at her. Link still wasn't responsive to her attempts at going further, in fact he was becoming increasingly distant and this just made her work harder.

'I promise you, Link,' Tracy told her self one evening as she stared into her mirror, 'I promise you that I will keeping loosing weight until you want me again.'

But across town, Link was staring into his own mirror. Normally, he would be practicing his trademark wink but he couldn't help but think about how much Tracy had changed. He never saw her in school, she was always at the library but he could never find her there. She only asked for water and a small salad when they went out to eat but she never finished either of them. She was exhausted after the opening dance on the show and struggled to keep up when she used to set the pace. She didn't look like the Tracy he had fallen in love with just a few months ago, she was a shadow of herself. She never laughed or made jokes anymore, just poured herself into her schoolwork and dancing. She had become so thin… but not in a good way. When she had once been wonderfully curvy to him, she was now deflated in every way possible. It used to be that when Tracy would try to go further, he would stop her because he didn't trust himself if he continued. Now when she tried, it was like touching a stranger. He didn't want to bring it up. Every time he did, she seemed to act odder and odder. He still loved her, nothing was going to ever changed that. And he understood that if she wanted to loose weight, that was her decision, not his and he should support her no matter what. But something didn't feel right about this.

Link picked up his telephone and called the only person that he knew Tracy would listen to. "Hello, Penny?" he said when he heard his friend's voice. "It's Link. Listen, it's about Tracy…"


	4. Chapter 4

DECEMBER

Tracy was furious with them. How dare they? How dare they confront her about this? Didn't Link know that this was for him? Didn't Penny understand why she needed to loose the weight? And she hadn't lost as much as they tried to make her feel like she had. Just a few pounds. No where near where she needed to be. True, she had reached her goal of a size eight a few days ago but it had been a tight squeeze!

Tracy looked at herself in her mirror, recalling what they had said earlier.

"Tracy, you'll always be beautiful to me no matter what but you don't look healthy…"

"You don't look like my best friend anymore…"

"You can't keep up on the show like this…"

And the worst one of all, "I can't be with you and watch you hurt yourself and not say anything…"

He had ended it. He didn't love her anymore. It was that simple. She hadn't lost weight fast enough and she lost him. And that made her sick to her stomach.


	5. Chapter 5

JANUARY

Tracy was down to a size six and finally wore those beautiful dresses that she had dreamed about. But she wasn't dancing with Link in them. She was stuck with Fender, who stepped on her feet and talked about how many of the other girls on the council he had nailed, including the colored ones. Link paired with Lil' Inez now. They were the most popular and had to dance together unless one of them started dating someone on the show. Every now and then, Tracy could feel those clear blue eyes on her as Fender spun her around the dance floor. But every time she tried to look at him, that sickening feeling rose up from her stomach and she had to rush off set.

That feeling was happening more often now. After every meal, no matter how little she ate, after every dance. Her throat ached from it, her muscles begged for it to stop but no matter what she did, it always came back full force. When Tracy first started getting sick, there were rumors that she was pregnant but then it got out that she and Link had broken up and it wasn't until then that others began to notice how much thinner she had become.

She wasn't talking to Penny anymore. Penny tried but nothing could heal what she had done, ganging up on her with her boyfriend.

Her parents had tried to talk to her about it but Tracy didn't hear them… or rather she chose not to hear them. Like everyone else.


	6. Chapter 6

FEBRUARY

Valentine's Day. The Valentine's Day show. This was the day that all the new couples would declare, on air, that they were dating. Tracy and Link had been so excited because everyone still thought that he was with Amber even after the Miss Teenage Hairspray show. But as Tracy sat alone at her dressing mirror in the studio, in her pretty red and white dress, she could only cry at the fact that she had no one. Her dress was a size four and it was too big. She was struggling to safety pin the straps tighter so it wouldn't fall down but through her tears, she kept poking her back.

"Here, let me," a soft voice said. Tracy wiped away her tears and saw Link reaching for the safety pins in her hand.

"It's fine, I can…"

"No, you can't. You're lucky that the fabric right there is red, it hides the stain." He took the pins and pulled the left strap until it was snug and pinned it in place. The back of his hand grazed her shoulder in the process, making Tracy shudder from the contact she had so desperately missed. He did the same on the right strap and his hand had the same effect.

"Thank you, Link." Tracy got out of her chair and smoothed out her dress as she turned to face him. He looked handsome as ever in his grey suit, red shirt and tie but her tears were echoed in his face. "Link, I—"

"Tracy, I still love you. I still love you, but I don't know who this person standing in front of me is. She is a ghost of who you were." The other council members were starting to arrive. Link spoke quietly. "When I said that I love you no matter what you weigh, I meant it. And to hear you say that you did this to yourself for me… I don't know, Tracy. I don't know what I could have possibly said or done to make you do this to yourself."

"I…you…Link…" Tracy fainted to the floor, crumpled in a little ball.

Tracy was taken to the hospital right away and admitted with exhaustion and malnutrition. She slept for three days straight. When she woke, Link was right there beside her, holding her hand and telling her how much he loved her.


End file.
